From Fast Fashion Designer to Sustainable Innovator: How I Made the Change.
Fashion became much more than a form of self-expression and creativity— it became a platform to question social, political and environmental implications of the fashion industry.
If you love fashion, you were probably first drawn to dressing and making as a form of self-expression. Fashion is an ancient, beautiful and essential part of our lives that keeps us safe from the elements and allows us to show the world who we are. However, the fashion industry of today has a dark side. I had the opportunity to go behind the curtain and into the fashion industry, where I saw the glaring unsustainable realities that hide behind the façade of this so-called glamorous industry.
After finishing my undergraduate degree in Fashion Design in 2016 and moving from Chicago to New York City to work in the fashion industry, I realised the industry wasn’t what it seemed. Over the last 20 years (since the birth of fast fashion), fashion has become less about concept and craft and more about profit margins and exponential growth.
Bright eyed and a bit naïve, I had no idea what I was in for. I had spent the last 4 years studying in a liberal arts program, where I researched fashion alongside the dynamics of gender, race and art through the lenses of literature and history. I was the co-president of a student feminist organisation, the F-Word, and spent time fundraising for issues I cared about. Fashion became much more than a form of self-expression and creativity—it became a platform to question social, political and environmental implications of the fashion industry.
In New York, I was faced with the reality of the fashion industry. There was cut-throat competition for jobs, but after an array of internships and temporary work, I landed a full-time job as a designer at a large fast fashion company in the Garment District. I spent the next 3 years turning out sketches and specification sheets over late nights and weekends. Between a small team, we averaged about 100 sample items per month.
The massive scale of production meant that, in order to keep prices low, we outsourced and produced everything overseas. It was through this daily communication with our factories that I became increasingly aware of the staggeringly low costs, immense waste and unfair labour practices in overseas manufacturing and in our NYC office. As an engaged citizen, I have long been aware of the environmental consequences and exploitative labour practices within the fashion industry, but experiencing it first hand and being personally responsible for rejecting hundreds of meters of bulk fabric when it comes in “off standard” was different. I knew I was part of the problem, but I made the decision that I was going to become part of the solution.
Completing the MA Fashion Futures course at London College of Fashion changed everything.
It was here that I was challenged with new ideas and discovered the complex underlying structures that make up the global fashion industry. It was here that I experimented with new concepts and questioned everything I once thought to be true. It was here that I asked, “can fashion ever truly be sustainable? Can fashion be used as a tool to regenerate our environment?”
I found that the answer is: yes. I was introduced to the work of Rebecca Burgess, the Fibershed, which started as her own personal journey to have all of her clothes made locally within a 150-mile radius. 10 years later, the personal challenge turned into a network of hundreds of local farmers, weavers, dyers, and artisans who use wool bearing sheep to draw down carbon from the atmosphere and trap it in healthy soil, where it belongs. It seemed like the perfect solution. Except, I don’t have a farm, and more than 60% of the world’s population lives in condensed urban areas. So, the question then became, how can urban areas, with limited space and expensive real estate establish their own localised and regenerative fashion systems?
The answer? Fibre Lab.